Energy crisis game

ABSTRACT

A competitive game for being played between players, and which is based upon trading in energy products so as to acquire monetary wealth; the game including a gameboard having a world map as the playing field, a pair of dice, a deck of fate cards, a bundle of play money, booklet of rules and playing pieces representing oil barrels, gas trucks and nuclear power plants. The board includes spaced depressions for containing liquid which are interconnected by channels. A flexible sheet mounted over the board may be manually depressed to seal the channels and to cause liquid to spout from within the depressions through upstanding spouts to simulate the pumping of oil.

United States Patent Adcock et a1.

1451 Sept. 23, 1975 1 1 ENERGY CRISIS GAME [76] Inventors: Albert W. Adcock; George Spector,

both of 3615 Woolworth Bldg.. 233 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10007 [22] Filed: May 13, 1974 [21] Appl.No.: 469,231

273/130 D, 131 B, 134 AC, 134 AB, 134 G. 135 R, 135 AB, 135 AA, 136 R, 136 H, 139

Primary Examiner-Richard C. Pinkham Assistant E.mminer.loseph R. Taylor [57] ABSTRACT A competitive game for being played bctwecn players, and which is based upon trading in energy products so as to acquire monetary wealth; the game including a gameboard having a world map as the playing field. a pair of dice. a deck of fate cards. a bundle of play money, booklet of rules and playing picccs representing oil barrels, gas trucks and nuclear power plants. The board includes spaced depressions for containing liquid which are interconnected by channels. A flexible sheet mounted over the board may be manually 1 1 References Cited depressed to seal the channels and to cause liquid to UNITED STATES PATENTS spout from within the depressions through upstanding 2299,2103 10/1942 Deaton 273/135 AB spouts simulate the Pumping m 2,47().632 5/1949 McLeod 273/134 0 3 Claims 3 Drawing Figures 3,729,198 4/1973 Shaffer 1 v 273/134 AC 3,801,104 4/1974 POMS C1. 211. 273/134 AE I 1BEE1A IL FIELD ARABlA, 0 u- F ELD US Patent Sept. 23,1975 3,907,301

. ENERGY CRISISv GAME This invention relates generally to board games.

A principle object of the present invention is to provide a game based on the theme of the world wide energy crisis and which accordingly is certain to attract interest for a great many players because almost everyone is effected by the present world energy crisis s'itu'a-.

tion.

Another object is to'provide an energy crisis game which gives each player the feeling that he is a world- 1 nying drawings wherein:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a fragmentary plan view of a modified design of the invention in which the game board has pocket underneath a flexible top sheet made of rubber, the pockets being connected by narrow passages and containing refillable water, so that before the game is played the gameboard is shaken so that no one knows which pocket has more water than another, and as shown in FIG. 3, the water can be squeezed out of the pockets so to represent oil for being traded.

Referring now to the drawing in detail, and more particularly to FIG. 1 thereof at this time, the reference numeral represents an energy crisis game according to the present invention wherein there is a gameboard 11 having a playing field 12 on one side, the playing field comprising a world map. The game additionally includes various playing pieces for placement and movement upon the playing field; these pieces comprising a quantity of 400 Oil barrels 13, a quantity of 300 small gas trucks l4 and a quantity of 200 nuclear power plants 15. Additionally there is a deck of fate cards 16,

Q a bundle of play money 17 of various denominations,

a pair of dice l8 and a booklet of playing rules 19.

Each of the fate cards 16 has a different play instructions, such as in the following few examples:

' 1 L1. Attend Peace Conference get one Oil Barrel from the Bank. 2. Strike Oil Collect Two Million Dollars from the I Swiss Bank.

3. Pipeline to Oil Field Breaks, Give One Barrel Back to Swiss Bank. 4. Nuclear Power Plant Explodes. Pay One Million to Bank. .5 New Breakthrough Get Five Nuclear Power I Plants from Bank.

6. Stock Market Falls in your Country. Give One Million to Bank. 7. The President of your Country is Impeached. Lose Next turn or Pay One Million Bribe to Swiss Bank. All the components of the game can be stored in a game box 31 when not in use.

In playing the game, each player first selects a country or countries; some countries being rich in dollars, oil, gas or nuclear supplies. In case of disagreement """concerning who gets which country, the dice are tossed. Each player receiving a particular country, also gets aspecific number of oil barrels, gas trucks, nuclear power plants: and play money, or he may get none of certain of-these items if such country in real life is known to be lacking in them.

- The-object of the game is for each player to have his country achieve a net worthof one hundred million dollars. The first country thatat'tains this, or the equivalent of this in energy supplies, is declared the winner. In the game each gas truck 14 is valued at one million "clollarsfebacih oil barrel 13'at one million; each nuclear power plant '15 at five million.

A player may buy'ene r'gy supplies'only from the other countries, and only if they wish to sell. A player does not have to sell his energy supplies. A player may also sell his supplies: at any price he chooses. For the first turn, each of the players throw the dice, and the player with the highest number starts by drawing a fate card.

A player may pass if he so desired. The Play moves clockwise."

A player mayboycott the rest of the world anytime 'we wants during his turn for the cost of five million dollar s. The player gives five million dollars to the Swiss bank to boycottand then throws one of the dice- He collects one million dollars from each player for .each

during his turn. He may boycott and take a fate card also during the same turn.

Each player keeps his cast to himself but places his energy supplies in his countries boundaries.

The Swiss Bank will change your money or buy you supplies at any time but they charge five hundred thousand maximum and minimum everytime you want to borrow and sell from them. The charge is limited to five hundred thousand per turn. The bank is located normally in the game box located nearby the board so that all players are fairly near it. The Swiss bank may never win the game by itself.

A player never pays any charge to the swiss bank when hereceives anything from it because of a chance card during his turn. He does not pay a charge if he has to pay because of a chance card if it is his turn. If it is not his turn and he is forced to change his supplies to cash or cash to supplies, he must pay the five hundred thousand dollar charge.

In the rules of the game it calls for five hundred thousand dollars play money bills in addition to the one million dollar bills. This is the Charge" that the Swiss Bank" collects from the players when they change their oil barrels etc., into cash or something else and it is not their turn.

In a modified design of the invention, shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, there is a gameboard 20 comprised of a thick base 21, comprised of waterproof material, having on its upper side, depressions 22 and interconnecting channels 23 therebetween; the upper side of the base being covered by a flat sheet 24 made of flexible rubber, so to enclosed the depressions and channels. The world map playing field I2 is printed on top of the rubber sheet 24.

In this form of the game, water 25 (representing oil) is poured into the depressions and channels by means of flexible filler hose 26 closable by a filler cap 27.

An oil-well-shaped spout 28 is formed in the sheet 24 over each of the depressions 22 which permits a player to extract the water from the depression. Thus each depression containing oil represents an underground oil number on the dice. A p layer may only boycott once field from which oil can be pumped out so to produce a valuable energy commody for use in the game.

In playing this form of the game, only a limited quantity of water 25 is poured inside the gameboard and the filler cap is then closed. The gameboard is shaken before starting the'game so that the water scatters throughout the depressions, some gettingmore than others, no player knowing which has more than another. Thus in a real life manner, the productivity of each oil well is a matter of chance. As shown in FIG. 2, the depressions are located in geographical areas that are known to contain oil, such as western U.S., Canada, Alaska, off-shore western U.S., Siberia, Arabia, etc.

In pumping out oil, a player first must close off the channel or channels 23 that communicate with oil field depression. He does this by finger or fingers 28 squeezing down on sheet 24 as shown. He then squeezes a finger 29 down on sheet 24 over the depression thus causing the water to pour out of the spout 28. The'water can be caught in tubs 30each of which represents an oil tank, and which can then be traded in the game as an energy commodity.

construction it is understood that such changes will be within the spirit and scope of the present invention as is defined by the appended claims.

What is claimed is:

1. A game board for playing a game related to oil fields, said board including spaced depressions for containing liquid with open channels interconnecting said depressions, in combination with a flexible sheet mounted over-the board sealingly engaging the board areas encompassing the depressions, said sheet being sufficiently deformable to be depressed manually to seal selected channels, in combination with spaced outlet means through said sheet communicating with each depression for spouting liquid responsive to manual pressure on the sheet at each depression to simulate oil pumping, including a filler inlet means to said chambers.

2. A board as in claim 1, wherein said means comprises upwardly projecting spouts.

3. A board as in claim 1 in combination with playing pieces representing units of energy value, a deck of fate cards, a bundle of play money, a pair of dice and a world map printed on the sheet wherein various countries overlay and correspond to various depressions. 

1. A game board for playing a game related to oil fields, said board including spaced depressions for containing liquid with open channels interconnecting said depressions, in combination with a flexible sheet mounted over the board sealingly engaging the board areas encompassing the depressions, said sheet being sufficiently deformable to be depressed manually to seal selected channels, in combination with spaced outlet means through said sheet communicating with each depression for spouting liquid responsive to manual pressure on the sheet at each depression to simulate oil pumping, including a filler inlet means to said chambers.
 2. A board as in claim 1, wherein said means comprises upwardly projecting spouts.
 3. A board as in claim 1 in combination with playing pieces representing units of energy value, a deck of fate cards, a bundle of play money, a pair of dice and a world map printed on the sheet wherein various countries overlay and correspond to various depressions. 